My semester in Dakar

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You can buy anything you might wish for on the streets of Dakar. Vendors sit in the shade with their wares piled up on the sidewalk: suitcases, prayer mats, towels. Next to the local beignet street stand, a woman sets out rows and rows of high-heeled shoes. Boys balance baskets on their palms that are filled with stacked pyramids of limes and oranges. Folded blue jeans or full business suits flap in the breeze, strung up on lines. On my walk to school, I pass stands selling bounties of fruits and vegetables, stands selling huge cuts of meat. There is truly a market or street for everything in Dakar, and it seems that all those who sell the same thing are grouped together—Marché HLM with its rabbit warrens of ornate fabrics, Marché Sandaga with its premade clothes. On the kaar-rapide, we pass a street where everyone is hawking heavy wooden furniture. Leaving the Port du Dakar, we walk down a narrow alleyway lined with street vendors selling construction supplies—orange hard hats and safety vests, shovels and chains. You can buy anything you need in Dakar—you only need to know where to look.